


Into the Woods

by myeerah



Series: Rusverse [2]
Category: CHERRYH C. J. - Works, Kingdom Hearts, Russian Stories - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Community: no_true_pair, Crossover, Multi, Shipwreck, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:49:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myeerah/pseuds/myeerah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting into the woods is the easy part. Surviving them requires some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first written in a series set in the same 'verse with the KH crew visiting the world of C. J. Cherryh's Russian Trilogy; this is set between _Rusalka_ and _Chernevog_. If you're familiar with KH, then you should be fine. Many, many thanks to the wonderful ciceqi for the beta. Any and all remaining errors are mine alone.

Things had not gone at all well. The improbable number of Heartless ships had driven them off course and damaged their ship to the point where an emergency landing was called for. Unfortunately, what they got was a crash, as they missed the river and landed in a dead forest.  
Sora painfully hefted himself into a sitting position, ran a hand through unruly spikes, and stared, bemused, at the wet gleam on his hand. “Kairi?” he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Kairi?” he called. “Riku?”

A groan answered him, so Sora levered himself to his feet and looked around. It took him a moment to recognize what he was seeing, between the poor illumination of the faint emergency lights and the jumbled chaos of their wrecked vessel. When the image clarified, all thought poured from his head in a blind panic as he hurried to his friends.

Kairi was in a heap at the base of a wall; the groan had come from her as she struggled to rise, or at least reorganize her tangled limbs. Riku, however, lay pale and still, a long strip of metal from the cockpit’s interior protruding from his back as if some conquering soul had planted a flagpole in bleeding ground. Sora froze, unsure which of his friends to go to first. “Kairi?” he asked again, his voice spiraling high and strained.

“’M’kay,” he heard, which was enough for him to throw himself to his knees at Riku’s side.

Colors had gone strange in the distorted firelight flickering through the exterior windows and the greenish glow of the overhead lights, but Sora was sure that the darkness in Riku’s pale hair was entirely from blood, as was the trickle trailing from the corner of his open mouth. “Kairi,” Sora said once more, “Riku’s hurt.” His fingers fumbled as he spoke, feeling for Riku’s neck, trying to find a pulse. _All this time as a Keybearer and I never thought to take first aid?_ he thought. Riku was so pale.

“Riku?” Kairi grunted as she finally managed to get her feet under her. “There was an explosion. Something fell. He pushed me.” She panted between phrases, in obvious pain, even if not obviously injured. Stumbling a little, she moved the short distance to join Sora at Riku’s side. She gasped when she saw him, motionless and bleeding on the floor with the injury he’d taken for her. “This is awful! Sora, can’t you cure him?”

“Help me,” he begged. “We need to get that out of him. Can you pull it out while I start casting? I don’t want him to bleed too much.”

“Of course!” Wrapping unsteady hands around the length of metal, Kairi looked at Sora and said, “Nod when you’re ready.”

Sora took a deep breath and focused on the spell. As he felt the power build right to the point of release, he nodded at Kairi; she wrenched clumsily upward on the makeshift lance impaling their friend, and he let the energy flow out in a rush.

A deafening crash of thunder shook the battered ship as the simultaneous flash of lightning revealed Riku: deathly pale, no longer skewered, and bleeding copiously from the unhealed wound.

There was a beat of stunned silence as they stared. _It…didn’t work?_ Sora thought, dazed and shaken to the bone. Kairi recovered first, desperately clapping her hands to Riku’s back, trying to slow the blood loss. “Sora! Get an elixir or something!” she ordered, frantic.

Blinking stinging eyes, Sora hurried to obey. A moment’s fumbling in his pockets produced a crystalline vial, which he unstoppered with all the haste his trembling hands could muster. He drizzled a few drops into Riku’s mouth, held his jaw closed, and stroked his throat, with vague memories of giving a cat medication in the same way and hoping that it worked for humans, too. He emptied nearly half of the vial in this manner and watched Riku anxiously for improvement. There was none forthcoming.

Wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, Sora pleaded, “Riku, c’mon. Don’t do this to us.” His voice was nearly lost under the drone of the sudden storm outside, the rain hammering against the ship’s hull and creating a constant thrumming of echoes.

“Listen!” Kairi ordered as her head snapped up. Keeping her hands pressed to Riku’s back, she elaborated, “Someone’s out there.”

Cocking his head and trying to ignore the pounding in his chest, Sora heard the voice this time. It was high and thready, but distinct as it said, “Hello? Can you hear me?”

Sora locked eyes with Kairi for a spare moment before leaping to his feet and rushing to the entrance. He managed to shoulder the slightly warped door open with a grunt of effort and poked his head out into the night. “Hello!” he called. “Yes, we can hear you. Can you help? My friend is—” he choked, then continued, “hurt.”

Another flash of lightning revealed the area outside the ship. Broken trees were strewn haphazardly in a rough circle about him, and Sora could see a hint of the trail of destruction they’d left carved in their wake. In the frozen moment of time, he also spotted the source of the voice.

A young woman, barely more than a girl, was standing in the smoldering embers of the forest. Water streamed from her cloaked form, and from pale hair that fell in two thick braids down past her waist. He blinked rapidly to clear the ghostly image from his seared retinas.

Stepping back out of the way, he felt a wave of relief, and a surety that she could help and that more help was on the way. Once she passed him, Sora turned to follow her into the ship, until he was hit with a massive urge to wait outside to guide the promised help and stay out of this girl’s way.

Wait, what promised help?

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “but I need you to leave. Help is coming, I’ve called for them, but I can’t help your friend with you underfoot.”

Sora was standing out in the rain before he realized it, and he couldn’t believe that he’d abandoned Riku to some strange girl. He steeled himself to go back in and had just started walking when Kairi emerged, running into him and jarring both of their aching bodies.

Kairi was the first to get her breath back. “Sora, who was that?”

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, “but I feel pretty sure that she’s here to help.”

“She walked in, and I just felt like I had to get up and come out here! I left Riku, and he’s bleeding!” Kairi grabbed for him. She missed his hands, instead capturing him by one arm, with her other hand slapping into his gut. “We left Riku with some stranger and I can’t make myself go back in there!”

“I—Kairi…. Let’s both try. We can remind each other why we’re doing it. Okay?” He looked into her eyes and waited for her to nod. “Right, then. Let’s go.” He turned and tried once more to walk back into the ship. This time it was Kairi’s hand pulling against his that stopped him. “Ignore it,” Sora advised.

“No, Sora, look!”

“Look at what?”

“Just look!” She waved a hand, and he tracked it to a light bobbing through the forest. As it drew nearer, it resolved into two lights, each held by a figure silhouetted against the rain-lashed wreckage of the woods.

The people clambered over the debris and, as they came into the clearing around the ship, it became obvious that they were two young men. They were hooded against the rain, faces obscured, even despite the lanterns they carried. “What have we here?” one of them asked as he came close enough to be heard over the storm and the noise of their progress.

“This must be the help she promised,” Sora muttered before calling back, “Our friend is hurt, and there’s a lady inside who won’t let us see him!”

The newcomers exchanged a look at that, and as the taller one sighed, the shorter said mildly, “I’ll go help her, shall I?”

“God, do, Sasha,” the other said. “I’ll talk to her later about manners. You just be sure to mind yours.”

“Sorry.”

“Go, boy!”

The shorter of the two—Sasha—slipped past Sora and Kairi with a murmured, “Pardon me.” As he disappeared into the ship, Sora felt that it would be fine to step back in out of the rain, please, just mind that they didn’t get underfoot.

Sora blinked some more at the odd thought. It really hadn’t felt like his own. He turned to face the remaining man. “Who are you?” he asked, quite reasonably in his opinion.

“A fair question, lad, and one I might ask of you, too, but let’s save the introductions for the dry, hmm?” He gestured back to the open doorway and added, “It’s not right to keep such a lovely young lass out in the rain.”

“Kairi!” Sora yelped, after turning to see her shivering and turning blue in the wet cold. He wrapped his own, chilled arms around her and started easing her back under shelter. The man followed behind.

Once they were out of the rain, if not exactly cozy and warm, the man pushed back his hood. “Introductions, then. I am Pyetr,” he said with a mocking little bow, “my young friend is Sasha, as you may have heard, and the lady tending your friend is my wife, Eveshka. I do apologize for her, by the way. She means well, but she really doesn’t know how to deal with people. God, she still doesn’t know how to deal with me, which is lucky for you, otherwise we’d still be snug in bed at home rather than out here in the middle of the night in a rainstorm they called to put out your fires, and I very much doubt the leshys would appreciate you burning down the forest.” He shook his head, a trifle ruefully. “But I digress. Who might you be, who have dropped into our lives so unexpectedly? A tsarina and her guard come from Kiev, perhaps?”

The two of them merely stared at him. Neither one had hardly heard a word he said, still stunned from the appearance of his naked face. Pyetr ran a hand over eerily familiar features and said, with somewhat less grace and patience, “Children, I am cold, wet, and out of sorts. I do understand that you’re probably in the same boat, but I would very much appreciate it if you were to stop staring as if I’d grown another head and answer a civil question.”

Sora, and Kairi in the circle of his arms, jumped. “Ah, sorry,” Sora said. “I’m Sora.”

“Kairi.” She shivered, and Sora rubbed his hands comfortingly over her arms.

“It’s just…” Sora explained, “you look like Riku. Our friend.” He gestured in the direction of the cockpit, sparing a hope that Sasha and Eveshka were having luck putting him back together.

It was true; Pyetr looked like he could have been Riku’s older brother. The lines of his face were sharper, more masculine, his hair was yellow-white rather than silver-white, and his eyes were the cool blue of a spring sky instead of warm, tropical seas, but the resemblance was uncanny, nonetheless.

A pale brow lifted at Sora’s words, shortly followed by a quirk of the mouth. It was a wry, bitter look, with more than a hint of dark humor. “Ah, well, if your friend is from anywhere nearby, I very much doubt I was the only bastard child my worthless excuse of a father left behind.”

Sora coughed, unsure how to reply to that, but Kairi came to his rescue. “We’re really not from around here.”

Pyetr simply nodded, apparently willing to accept that answer for now. “It seems,” he said, as Sora got a feeling that matched Pyetr’s words, “that you can go see your friend now.”

They made their way back to the cockpit and found Riku laid out on the floor, with what must have been Sasha’s cloak bundled beneath his head, his shirt cut off of him, Sasha and Eveshka seated on the floor on either side of him…and a small, black creature curled into a bristling lump on Riku’s legs that turned and hissed at them as they entered.

“ _Good_ Babi,” Pyetr said from behind them before Sora could summon his Keyblade. “Did you help? Thank you, Babi. When we get home we’ll have vodka, and maybe even honeycakes. Would you like that, Babi?” The black thing that looked for all the worlds like a Shadow Heartless, except for not looking anything like one, vanished. When Sora whirled back to look at Pyetr, he found the creature perched on one cloaked shoulder and clinging to a fistful of fair hair.

“Babi is a dvorovoi,” Sasha explained, as Sora turned back with a baffled shrug. Kairi had already knelt down on Riku’s side where Eveshka had vacated the spot, so Sora hurried over to claim his friend’s other hand. Sasha, too, vacated his spot and joined Pyetr for a muffled discussion.

Sora tuned everything else out but the feel of Riku’s hand in his, the sight of his bare abdomen with its new, shiny pink scar where the metal had speared him, the sound of his breath, steady and even. He was still pale, but he looked infinitely better than when he’d been bleeding out. Sora touched a trembling hand to Riku’s forehead, ran fingers through stained hair, and his eyes unfocused as pent-up tears began to fall. His blind fingers met Kairi’s, and they spent a long moment just drinking in the sensation of the three of them and the sheer relief that they were all still there.

* * *

They were given their privacy until the storm blew over, and there was no opportunity for explanations as they worked out how to carry an unconscious Riku over a few miles of heavily wooded land without re-injuring him, but they finally arrived at a small cottage on the riverside. A sailboat creaked in its moorings at a weather-beaten dock, faintly visible in the wan light of dawn. The cottage itself appeared rather ramshackle, the lines of the obvious later expansion unplumbed and the wooden shingles on the roof erratic and ungainly. There was a smaller structure off to one side that had fared worse than the house, twisted far more than Merlin’s old home had ever been, and, by way of contrast, a tidy garden on the other side with various vegetables growing in orderly rows.

Eveshka had hurried ahead to the smaller of the buildings as Sora, Pyetr, and Sasha took it in turns to carry Riku slung on a cloak between two of them, and Kairi followed carrying the spare lantern and a couple of small packs. Both of the men had been reluctant to have her carrying their weight, but had surrendered to necessity when they discovered they were too encumbered to carry their sleeping burden. Even then, Sasha had only entrusted his pack to her after removing a large book from it and passing it into Eveshka’s keeping.

As they neared the small building, Eveshka emerged. “The fire is lit and the water’s heating. Go on and take him in; get him cleaned up. I’ll go fix something to eat.” She hesitated for a long, anxious moment before tentatively adding, “Kairi, would you come help me?”

Sora pretended not to notice the startled reactions of the two men, and Kairi looked longingly at Riku before agreeing and vanishing into the house. The remaining three gently maneuvered their passenger through the door of the small building which, as it turned out, was a sort of sauna.

In fact, “Lucky for you that we finished the bathhouse,” Pyetr commented as he began disrobing with no evident modesty. “Best way to get your friend here warmed up again.” Sora stared in horrified fascination as the man who looked like an alternate version of Riku stripped to the skin. He even had a shiny white scar in nearly the same place as Riku’s newly acquired one. When the trousers came off, Sora turned away, cheeks going pink as he busied himself with his own attire. He’d swum around shirtless (and be-tailed) in Atlantica and run about the Pride Lands wearing nothing but fur. What was so weird about getting naked and taking a bath with three other guys, one of which was his knocked out best friend and the other two being complete strangers?

He looked back up to find Sasha staring at him strangely. “You’re really not from around here, are you?”

“Huh? No. Why?”

“I’ve never heard of Atlantica, _or_ the Pride Lands.” Sasha blushed, then. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to eavesdrop. I just can’t help it sometimes.”

“Eavesdrop? Are you…reading my mind?” Sora goggled at him.

“Not on purpose!” Sasha was fervent.

“Boy, you know that’s not polite—” Pyetr began, but Sora babbled out, “That’s so cool! What number am I thinking?”

They both stopped and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You,” Sasha began, testing the idea as he spoke, “you want me to listen in on your thoughts?”

“Yeah! Being a mind-reader must be awesome.” Sora beamed at them.

Sasha and Pyetr had another of their wordless exchanges before Pyetr shrugged and waved his hands in a “go ahead” gesture.

“You…the number you’re thinking is ‘three’ because of the three of you. You feel that it would be a good thing to hear your friends’ thoughts and know how they regarded you and each other. You and Riku have both loved Kairi for years and you want to know if she loves either of you more than the other, but you can’t help thinking that it’d be better all around if—” Sasha broke off, dark eyes bulging in mute shock as Sora first paled, then blushed bright red. “I, um, I—” Sasha spluttered before backing to the door, grabbing up his discarded shirt, and fleeing.

Pyetr stared at the bathhouse door for several moments before turning a pointed look on a thoroughly embarrassed Sora. “I don’t want to know,” he declared. “That boy lives in a very special kind of hell, and I would do a great deal to spare him from it. He doesn’t need to know what’s going on in people’s heads; it’s not natural and it’s not right, but a wizard isn’t either of those things. Kindly remind him to keep his mind to himself, and don’t, for the god’s sake, encourage him in impolite habits.” Pyetr sighed. “The last thing the lad needs is more things to worry about, as if he’s not already going to be worked up in knots over the fire, the storm, and the remarkable coincidence of your friend there looking like my prettier, bastard brother. He’ll be at his book for days, trying to work out if he wished up another friend, as I’ve been neglecting him in favor of my wife, or if, god, my wife wished up a different husband because she’s finally decided to turn me into a toad.”

There was too much in that statement to process. Sora had been operating on panicked adrenaline for some time now, desperately worried about Riku. He hadn’t been injured as badly as Riku had, but his head was throbbing from where he’d split it, and the growing warmth of the bathhouse was making him drowsy. He’d ask in a minute for clarification, but first he needed to sit down, just so, on the folded towel resting on the wooden bench, and lean back against the wall. Perhaps he’d just close his eyes for a bit, until his vision stopped swimming. Yeah. Just for a minute.

* * *

There were fingers combing through his hair. Sora sighed sleepily and nuzzled down further into bed, curling up a little more comfortably and sliding his hand up under his cheek. Only…the bed felt awfully hard, and the texture of the pillow wasn’t right, rather firmer than it should have been, yet oddly pliable for all that. He flexed his fingers experimentally and his pillow twitched.

“Stop that,” came a heartrendingly familiar voice, “it tickles.”

“Riku?” Sora bolted upright from Riku’s lap. “Riku, you’re awake!” He flung himself at his friend, catching him in a tight embrace. “It was awful, Riku! There was blood everywhere and you wouldn’t wake up and I couldn’t heal you and those people showed up and fixed you but you still wouldn’t wake up and I was so worried!”

A hesitant arm wrapped around him as Sora babbled, patting his back awkwardly, but it retreated as the litany wore down.

“I’m glad you’re okay, too, Sora, but could we save the touch-feely stuff for when we’ve got pants?”

“Huh?” Sora realized that there was quite a lot of skin contact going on, and reluctantly remembered the thought that had sent Sasha running. “Oh. Um…sorry.” He backed off and grabbed for a towel before looking around for their clothes.

And looking.

And looking some more, rather frantically.

“Umm… Riku? Where _are_ our pants?”

“Huh? Why ask me? I woke up naked.” He sounded surprisingly unconcerned, considering.

“You’ve obviously been awake longer. I thought you might have seen someone take them.”

“Who, the pants fairy? No, wait, didn’t she _give_ those to you?” Now he was unaccountably amused.

“Riku!” Sora whined. “You know something you aren’t telling me!”

“And this is news…how, exactly?” His grin was absolutely blinding in the shaft of light streaming in through the small hole in the top of the conical roof. Sora couldn’t help but return it.

“You are _so_ gonna get it,” he growled playfully.

“Get what?” The question rang out as the bathhouse door opened, spilling in more light from the outside and silhouetting Pyetr in the doorframe.

Jumping, Sora turned, then favored their rescuer with a bright smile. “Get beaten.”

“I suppose miracles could happen,” Riku interjected.

Baffled by the particulars of the exchange, Pyetr merely shook his head. “Sluice down and dry off, boys. ‘Veshka’s demanding your clothing be washed before it enters the house, so I’ve brought you some spares to put on.” He made to leave, but turned back and added, “Hurry up, or else all the honeycakes will be gone.”

Not quite sure what he meant, the two simply shrugged at each other and scrambled to dress. They recognized a treat when they heard one, no matter what it was called

Nevertheless, “You knew that, didn’t you?” Sora grumbled, fumbling with the ill-fitting garments.

Riku was having an easier time of it, his borrowed clothes unfairly suited to him. “You’re smarter than you look,” he teased. He dodged the first towel lobbed at him, but the second caught him in the face. Sora thought he rather deserved it and couldn’t hide his smile as he finished dressing.

* * *

Honeycakes turned out to be small, honey-sweetened flatcakes which, in spite of Pyetr’s warning, were plentiful, hot from the iron griddle in the hearth, and served on golden plates in the deceptively opulent interior of the poorly constructed house. Eveshka cooked and Kairi—cleaned up and wearing a demure, light blue dress embroidered with flowers around its ankle-length hem— served out the cakes. The boys teased her over it for several minutes, until the threat of food deprivation was issued.

They sat crowded around a table not meant to hold six with Babi popping in and out of existence to tug at their legs and beg for treats like a dog, if a dog could have dexterous hands and a predilection for changing its shape and size on a whim. It was currently curled up in Kairi’s lap, drinking greedily from a porcelain cup that Pyetr had filled for it.

Sora held onto his patience as long as he could, which very nearly lasted the entire meal. “What is that?” he blurted out as it handed its cup to Kairi and curled, kittenish, into a ball under her idly petting hand.

Sasha looked at him quizzically. “Babi’s a dvorovoi,” he said. “I thought I’d explained that already. I’m not surprised you’ve never seen one before, though, as they don’t typically like towns.”

“Seen one? I’ve never even heard of one.”

This garnered him looks from all three of their rescuers, and warning looks from Riku and Kairi, besides.

“Is there truly such a place where grandmothers don’t tell stories of House-things and Yard-things and evil wizards who lurk in the woods with their hearts hidden inside acorns? What a miraculous town you come from!” Pyetr scoffed. “Tell me, where might that be, again?”

“Uh…” Sora stalled, trying to think of what to say. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about other worlds, but how do you avoid the truth with a mind-reader in the room?

“You don’t,” Eveshka said, sternly, “so I’d appreciate it if you were honest with us.”

“’Veska,” Pyetr chided, “there’s no need for that. Babi likes them well enough, and you know how rare that is. Let’s see how far we can get with words before we resort to plucking thoughts from their heads, shall we?” He favored her with a smile that made her blush and avert her eyes.

Sasha resolutely poured himself another cup of tea from the silver samovar on the table.

“Now,” Pyetr went on, quite amiably, “dvorovoi take care of stables and yards, much like domovoi care for houses—ours is rather calm most times—and leshys care for forests. Babi’s a bit odd for a dvorovoi, but I think that comes from living with wizards. Your turn: where are you children from, and how did you happen to arrive in such a strange and messy manner?”

They looked at each other before Kairi shrugged and volunteered, “We’re from Destiny Island. It’s very far away, and we ended up here by accident.”

“I would certainly hope that you didn’t stab your friend, here, and nearly burn down the forest intentionally. You may as well tell the whole story, little girl. If you don’t, I’ve no doubt someone will get too curious and learn it anyway, and I’d far rather avoid that fate.” He softened the blow with an affectionate grin and a kiss to his wife’s temple.

It went against what they’d been taught, but that was hardly anything new. Taking it in turns, the trio laid out the bare bones of who they were, what they were up against, and how they got there. It took some time.

* * *

At the end of the telling, Eveshka ran from the house. Pyetr stood as if to chase her, then sat back down with a wince while Sasha sadly shook his head. "Give her some space," the boy advised as Pyetr slumped in his chair, elbows on the table and head in his hands. "I'm not far from that state, myself, if truth be told."

"You don't have to be scared," Sora said confidently. "I haven't seen any Heartless, and they usually jump out at me as soon as I get somewhere. I'm sure you're safe, and even if they do show up, Riku and I can take care of them." At the sound of a throat being decidedly cleared, he added, guiltily, "And Kairi, too."

"That's not why we're upset," Sasha explained, his fingers drumming a rapid beat on the table. "What you've described goes against everything we know, and it's dangerous for us to think about it."

"How could thinking be dangerous?" Kairi asked, puzzled, stroking down the bristling fur on Babi; the creature was still curled in her lap.

"Because," Pyetr said, rather bitterly, "thinking about something can lead to wanting it, or not wanting it, and both are wishes. Even without meaning it, a wizard's wishes can get a body killed."

Sasha jumped a little, said, "I'm—"

"Sorry, yes. _God,_ Sasha, _stop_ it!"

Frozen for a heartbeat, the air felt dangerous. Then it relaxed as Sasha stood and walked off, grabbing a book, inkwell, and pen from a small desk on his way out the door.

Pyetr sighed. "This is the hazard of living with wizards, children. You never know what to say, when to say it, or when it's safe to go see them again. 'Veshka was having one of her times when she stumbled over you as it is, so I've no doubt that she's all the worse for the turmoil. I'm always terrified that one of these times she'll decide not to come back, that it's not worth living with people after all, and if she does, then gods help us all."

"What do you mean?" Sora asked. "She seems really nice, if kinda tense, and she fixed Riku when we couldn't."

"You listen to me, boy." Pyetr fixed him with an intent gaze, and the resemblance to an angry Riku kept Sora silent and attentive. "Eveshka has never harmed another soul in her life. And she won't, so long as she has a reason to stay here, with us. She's strong; she terrified her father, and if she wanted, she could do just about anything, and she's afraid of that more than anything else. She made a mistake, once, and that nearly killed us. The three of us are only here now because she wanted me _alive_ more than anything else, and it was a close thing. She's making amends to the forest, trying to bring it back to life, but she'll always feel guilty for what she did, and for knowing how easy it would be to slip back into that."

Babi whined, vanished from Kairi's lap, and reappeared on Pyetr's shoulder, hugging his neck and trembling. Pyetr raised a hand to comfort the creature.

"I thought you said she never hurt anybody," Riku observed

"In her _life,_ I said."

"I don't understand," Sora complained.

"Be glad of that, boy. _I_ don't understand it all, myself, but I'm an ordinary man. I don't have to worry about things I want coming true."

"What's so bad about that?" Sora scratched his head in puzzlement. "You could want your friends safe and happy. You could want nothing to ever go wrong."

"Wishes don't work that way, boy. Sora. I can tease Sasha about wanting the Tsar's own horses, but if he actually _did,_ then something would have to happen to bring those horses here. Ordinary people don’t have those kinds of concerns. _I_ don't have to worry about anything but a noose around my neck if I go to Vojvoda, and I'm not damn likely to go back there!" Pyetr stopped then and stiffened. "Sasha!" he called.

There was a clatter, and Sasha reappeared in the doorway, wide eyed and a little breathless. "What's wrong?"

"Is somebody wishing me?" Pyetr demanded. "I'm getting a little too talkative with a handful of lost children."

Sasha stood there a moment, looking them all over. He looked terribly young himself, gangly limbs held awkwardly, plain brown hair mussed and slightly ink-stained from where he'd run a hand through it. "No. No, I don't think so. But there is something odd here. You mentioned it earlier: have you ever seen Babi act so friendly to anyone?"

Babi growled at that and, still clinging to Pyetr’s neck, shuffled around to the other shoulder to get away from Sasha.

"True. I’ve never even seen Babi this affectionate with ‘Veshka,” Pyetr mused. “Who _are_ you?”

“The Keybearer,” Riku stated, gesturing to Sora.

“ _Two_ Keybearers,” Kairi corrected, touching Riku’s hand where it lay on the table.

“And a Princess of Heart,” Sora finished, beaming proudly.

“I don’t _understand,_ ” Sasha blurted. “Heartless? Nobodies? Fire called from nowhere? The magic you describe sounds like sorcery, but where are you getting it from? Wishes work with nature, but what you’re talking about is _not_ natural!” He dropped into a chair, looking helpless.

“Everyone has light and darkness in them.” Riku had gone very still. The others watched him as he spoke, but he only stared intently at Sasha. “Some people are almost entirely one or the other, but most of us are a mix.” He extended a hand and summoned Way to Dawn. Ignoring the way his hosts jumped in alarm, he held the twined blade out. “This is what I am. Darkness and light, wrapped together, and useless apart. I can destroy with it, and I can unlock anything. I just need to decide which to do in every situation.” The Keyblade dissolved back into the ether and Riku lowered his hand. “It may not look natural, but it’s my nature. And Kairi’s.” He wrapped an arm around Sora’s neck and dragged him over, knuckling his free hand through brown spikes. “And this goofball’s.”

“Cut it out!” Sora gasped, giggling and pushing at Riku while Kairi laughed at the both of them.

Sasha gaped at their antics, but Pyetr simply smirked. “Haven’t I told you, boy, that you need to laugh a little more and worry a little less?” He reached over and gave Sasha the same treatment. “Lighten up!”

Helpless to resist, Sasha laughed along with them.

* * *

Often, Sora got odd impulses. He’d learned to trust them, as they inevitably led to new discoveries and new friends. This time, he felt an urge to take a walk in the woods and so, leaving Riku and Kairi behind to learn what they could of this strange world where most of their magic didn’t work, he wandered off upstream.

After a long, peaceful walk through the eerie forest—dead trees mixed with saplings, thorny bracken and bright, jewel-toned mosses—he arrived at a large, dead willow overhanging the river. Seated at the base, nestled in amongst the roots, he found Eveshka. Her long, golden blonde hair was disheveled, her dress muddy, and, when she looked up at him from the book she was writing in, her wide blue eyes were haunted and her face tearstained.

“Hi,” he greeted her, hands clasped behind his back. He prodded a stone embedded in the dirt with one foot. “I wanted to thank you. If it weren’t for you, Riku might have…well…he….” Sora coughed. “Anyway, thank you.”

“Your friends mean everything to you, don’t they?” The question was soft.

“Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “Places and things don’t really matter. You can’t replace people.”

“No.” She was still hushed; Sora moved closer to hear her better. “I never had friends. I never had anybody but Papa.” She swallowed hard. “Do you know where we are?”

“Ah…no?”

“This is my grave. I first saw Pyetr here. He touched my bones, and I saw him. Pale and half-drowned and more lovely than anyone I’d ever seen. He stood up to Papa when Papa would just as soon have killed him, and I fell in love. I didn’t know I could love without my heart. Pyetr got it back for me and it nearly killed him. _I_ nearly killed him.” She delivered revelations in a curious monotone.

Sora suppressed a shiver. In his experience, things went badly when people talked about losing and regaining hearts. None of those people had ever patched up a dying Riku for him, though. He tried to listen.

“I’d given my heart to a boy I thought I loved, thinking to run away with him and escape from Papa and all his smothering wishes, and he murdered me. He drowned me and bargained for power, using my body as barter. The vodyanoi is asleep, away, wherever such creatures go when they aren’t here, but I always hear the river. I dream of drowning, but I want to keep my life. I _want_ to live. Is that wrong of me, do you think?”

“I…. Well…. It’s normal to—”

“I want to do no harm, but I don’t want it strongly enough. I sometimes think I should die, to save Pyetr from me, but as much as I love him, it seems I want my own life more. Is it really love, do you think? The boy I once loved slept with my own mother, who sent him to kill me. He said he loved me. Papa said he loved me, but he never wanted _me,_ just a doll he could control. Pyetr says he loves me, but what if it’s only because I want him to? He can’t fight me; he’s a normal man, the kind I never knew.”

This deadly calm couldn’t be healthy, not with the confessions Eveshka was making to him. Sora tried to interrupt, but he felt what he was starting to recognize as a wish and couldn’t open his mouth to speak.

“Pyetr and Sasha are all I knew of the world, until you came along. You casually speak of other worlds, where magic is simpler and you don’t have to guard your very thoughts to keep from destroying people. You talk about sacrifice and doing anything to save those you care for, and I _don’t understand!”_

The calm had been nerve-racking, but now the storm had hit. There were clouds in her eyes and lightning in her voice, and Sora quailed momentarily under the sudden onslaught, but he suddenly knew, with that instinctive sense that had led him through so many worlds, what he needed to do.

He smiled. “I guess I don’t understand it all, either. I just know that my friends make me who I am, and without them, there’s no point to me. True friends know who you are and accept you, no matter what. They help you out when you need it, stand behind you, and never give up on you. Sounds to me like you’ve got two friends already, and now, maybe, three more. If you’ll have us.”

Just like that, the storm passed. Eveshka blinked in confusion. “What?”

“Well, I like you.” He shrugged. “It sounds like you’ve had a rough life, but look what you’re doing with it! You healed a stranger to you and that saved Riku’s life. You make an awesome breakfast. You got Kairi into that _dress!”_ He laughed, a bright, clear sound. “I’m really happy we ended up here. I kinda hope that you are, too.” Stepping closer to where she sat, Sora offered Eveshka his hand.

Bewildered, she looked at it, then up at his beaming face. She asked the only thing she could focus on. “But how are you going to leave?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Something will turn up. It always does.” His hand remained extended and steady.

Optimism was not Eveshka’s strong point, but something about this boy made her want to try it on for size. “Perhaps you’re right,” she agreed. Clasping the proffered hand, she allowed Sora to help her to her feet.

Once she was standing, Eveshka studied the madly grinning boy in front of her, and allowed herself to return his smile. It hit Sora like the sun after a dark, rainy night. It would do for now.


End file.
